Browsing Posts tagged Baltic Sea

The literature of the United States, the novelist and historian Wallace Stegner once said, is a literature of movement: Americans are always on the go, and their authors—Thoreau, Twain, Faulkner, Kerouac—tell of that restlessness. Well, if orangutans had a literature (and who says they don’t?), it would also tell stories of motion. So, at any rate, suggests a recent paper in the online scientific journal PLOSOne, in which authors from the University of Zurich observe that male orangutans plan their travel a day in advance and then communicate the direction in which they’ll be traveling to their “conspecifics,” as the scientists say.

A walrus sits on top of an iceberg in the Arctic Ocean–Tass/DeA Picture Library

What’s most interesting, apart from the very fact of this discovery, is the authors’ discussion of the pros and cons of having the ability to plan ahead, which costs time, attention, and brain power: “Animals must be able to bear the energetic costs of the brainpower needed for such a high-level cognitive ability. Thus, species that are already relatively large-brained may have a head start in evolving the ability to plan ahead.” It is for this reason that the ability to plan ahead has always been considered a uniquely human ability, though it may be only that we are the only species to use travel agents.

"Service Animal" Scammers (New Yorker): An increasing number of your neighbors have been keeping company with their pets in human-only establishments simply by claiming that the creatures are their licensed companion animals and are necessary to their mental well-being.

Why London’s pig café pop-up is a terrible idea for pigs: Teacup pigs are adorable. Unfortunately, they’re also a complete fabrication. But that isn’t stopping a local London specialty breeder and Yelp from putting on an adoption event to educate the public on “proper” micro pig care.